Internet platforms such TransferWise make transfers to other countries cheaper.
By Bettina Schulz in http://www.Zeit.de

Taavet Hinrikus sneers about the great competitors. “Western Union gets even more than the banks, which are already more expensive than us,” he says. Hinrikus is Estonian and “we” that is TransferWise, a start-up, which he founded with his business partner Kristo Käärmann four years ago. Based in London, they challenge banks and major payment services, for they are convinced that money can be transferred internationally cheaper than through Western Union or MoneyGram. They are supported by major investors like Sir Richard Branson, the man behind Virgin, or Peter Thiel, who became rich as a funder of PayPal and Facebook. … Read the full article in German:

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Quite different the second place. Tallinn. For five years I have been living in Estonia. This small country has shown me how success looks like in the future.
Estonia has a small population and no natural resources. Less than one percent of Europeans speak Estonian. In the Estonian language, there is no “he, she, it” still has a future form. “No sex, no future” because was also a standing joke among us immigrants.

The Estonians understood: the language is major obstacle to success. With Estonian you can not sell products abroad, bring no foreign investors into the country and win no international professionals.
Without foreigners, no understanding of foreign countries. But since the “foreign countries” make up 99 percent of the market, the Estonians had to change something. Without export the country can not survive.

What the Estonians did, required great courage.

Estonia has English as a second official language. Each law and each form is available in English. Every official, every employer and every toddler speaks the language fluently. All TV channels are in the original English language (with subtitles) and language teaching begins in kindergarten. Today, Estonia is the country with the fourth largest number of English worldwide.

How brave this decision was, is clear if one knows the history of Estonia. The country had been conquered repeatedly. The preservation of one’s identity is very important for the Estonians therefore.Still they chose openness rather than foreclosure. The fears of their past should not block their future. …”

„In case of high frequency of calls there is an overflow”, Carlo Kallen, speaker of the energy company Enercity in Hannover, Germany, explains.Then the customers are landing at an affiliated enterprise in Magdeburg, Germany – or in Estonia’s Võru (15 000 inhabitants).